I'll Cover You
by Eponine54
Summary: Angel's death from Collins' POV-hopefully you'll enjoy! Please R/R no flames unless I deserve it-you know the drill!


I'll Cover You  
  
By Cailin Humphrys  
  
I've never been one to dwell on many things. All that I had to do to get over things, to not let them get to me, was to ignore it-just not think about it. I couldn't do that with Angel- God knows I didn't. But then again, God supposedly knows a lot of things, like why He would take the life of someone like Angel. Angel was, for lack of any better words to describe her-an angel. She was beautiful, kind, and she had a passion for living that none of us could ever describe. When things were going down the tubes for all relationships except ours, she was there- comforting, giving advice, and always reminding us that we can share real love-all it takes is time. When she died, she took a bit of everyone along with her. However, she took all of me. I tried to be strong...but things don't always come out that way. She had been sick for so long. I knew it was only a matter of time...  
  
The Day Angel Died  
  
"Hey, Collins, could you grab me a beer from the kitchen?" yelled Joanne from the bedroom.  
  
"Sure, but we only have the crappy kind that tastes like road kill." I yelled back.  
  
I could hear the laughter at that statement from where Joanne, Maureen, Roger, Mimi and I were hanging around in Mark's bedroom, just drinking and talking. Mark was gone- we had no idea where he went, but figured, what the hell-if he's not here, he can't stop us from using his room. I doubt he would have cared anyway though. I went down the hallway, and opened up the small mini fridge that Roger, Mark, and Mimi shared. Suddenly, the phone rang.   
  
"Dude, would you mind getting that? You used to live here, so it's all good," yelled Roger from the bedroom.  
  
"No problem, my man." I called back. I ran to the phone, which was ringing wildly.   
  
"Yo, this is the loft and you are talking to Collins." I said in a jovial tone. It was times like these with my friends that had always made me reaffirm that life could always get better when it was at its worst.  
  
"Collins...hey..." came Mark's voice from the other end of the line. It sounded so distant and far away.  
  
"Mark-man, hey! We're currently making your bedroom Booze Central-come join us!"  
  
Static and silence greeted that proposal.   
  
"Mark?" I asked. Maybe the phone was bad. "Mark?" I called, louder this time.  
  
"Yeah, I'm here..." came his voice-so small and quiet.  
  
"Well get here then, wherever you are! Where are you anyway?"  
  
There was another pregnant pause, then,  
  
"At the hospital...Collins...you might want to sit down..."  
  
Suddenly, all the noise that I could hear from the other room drifted away. Roger's raucous laughter and Joanne calling my name inquiring about her beer seemed lightyears away. I sat down hard on the kitchen table.   
  
Attempting to make my voice calm, I said, "The hospital?"  
  
"Yeah...I'm on a pay phone. I haven't got too long."  
  
I took a deep breath and, with the feeling that there was a large hole in the pit of my stomach, asked the inevitable:  
  
"Is it Angel?"  
  
"...Collins..."  
  
"Dammit, Mark-tell me! Is it Angel?"  
  
I could hear a dry cough on the other line, and then Mark's choked voice came through:  
  
"Yes...she's not doing well. You need to come down here right away."  
  
I was on my feet before the last sentence was even out of his mouth.  
  
"Is she dying?"  
  
Softly, he replied, "She was always dying, Collins..."  
  
"IS SHE ABOUT TO DIE NOW?" I practically screamed.  
  
I could hear the voices falter in the other room, and I could hear Roger's footsteps come down the hall. Turning back to the conversation at hand, I asked,   
  
"Well?"  
  
"Yes," came the one word.   
  
I slammed the phone down hard, without waiting to hear anything else. Roger, by this time, had entered the kitchen. He immediately noticed the pained look on my face, and asked,  
  
"Angel?"  
  
I nodded numbly. "Yeah...Mark says I have to get down there now...she's..." My voice broke, but then I caught myself. "She's dying...for real..."  
  
Roger nodded, and then asked, "Do you want the rest of us to come too?"  
  
"Yeah...of course...I'm not the only one that cares about her after all."  
  
We all walked the few blocks down to the hospital that Angel was staying in. The silence between us all was deafening, and I wanted someone to say something; anything, just to break the silence. As we entered the lobby, I saw Mark sitting in a straight-backed chair that looked extremely uncomfortable. He stood up as we approached him, and said,   
  
"Hey guys...I guess Collins told you all the news."  
  
Maureen interjected; "Yeah, we were partying in your bedroom when you called so..." she trailed off. Then, in a burst of anxiousness, she asked, "Angel will be all right, won't she? Maybe this is just a false alarm, she's been really healthy lately..." After this outburst, her lips trembled, and her eyes watered, and she burst into tears in dramatic fashion. Joanne hugged her tightly, and sat her down on a chair to calm her down.  
  
"Angel's T-cells are really, really low. The doctors were already trying to prepare me for her dying when I was visiting her today. They said I should call anyone else that would want to see her before she died."  
  
Roger breathed in slowly, and then asked, "So that's where you were? You were here visiting Angel?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Roger let go of the fact that Mark hadn't mentioned anything to anyone about going to see Angel. It seemed a bit strange to everyone that he had gone without us, especially since he wasn't as close to Angel as some of us were. There was a silence, and the only things you could hear were the quiet voices of other worried people in the waiting room, telephones ringing in the distance, and Maureen's hiccoughing sigh as her tears subsided.  
  
"Mark...do you think we could go see her?" asked Mimi tentatively.   
  
Mark nodded, and then said to me, "Collins...you should go in first..."  
  
I replied, "I had intended on doing so to begin with...no offense to the rest of you."  
  
There was a general murmur of "None taken" that went around before Mark showed us to Angel's room. As we stopped outside the door, Mark turned to me and said,  
  
"If she starts to...you know..."  
  
"Fade?" I interrupted.  
  
"Yeah...that...then um, just holler ok?"  
  
"Sure thing." I replied, and then walked through the doors into Angel's room.  
  
She was so thin now...so frail. I had visited her daily, but the past two days I had been sick, and hadn't been able to come. I was feeling better, and I was going to come visit her later in the day...before I got the phone call. How can one person deteriorate so much in just a couple of days? She looked too big for the bed they had her in, and if you know the size of hospital beds, you'll know how small she was. She was sleeping peacefully, just like the angel that she was. I tiptoed to her bedside, and sat down on the stool there. Her chest rose and fell softly, and her breathing seemed more ragged than usual. I sighed, and then suddenly, got the urge to talk to her. I didn't care if she was sleeping, if I got out what I had to say, then I'd feel much better than if she had died without my saying it.  
  
"Angel," I began in my baritone voice, "I'm so sorry I haven't visited in the past couple of days. I've been sick...but that sounds so insensitive to say when you look at the condition you're in. But then again, being sick with just a cold can be fatal to both of us, so we're both in the same boat here. I don't want you to die, Angel. In the past year or so, you've meant more to me than almost anything has in the entirety of my life. When I met you, things just seemed brighter than they ever have. Not only that, you made me care. You made me realize that life is brighter than it really seems to be, that you can find love, that you ARE my love."  
  
I was starting to break down now, my voice getting choked with tears, and my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest. I couldn't stop now though, not after what I said just said. I continued,  
  
"And since you are my love, I'll let you go. I've never known anyone with such a passion for life as you, but I know that every time you get sick, every time you try to hold on one more time, I know it hurts. It damn near kills you just to keep going that one more day, and you did it for me. I want you to let go, Angel. I want you to be safe and happy again, I want you to remember what it's like to be completely out of the hands of Death, and into the hands of Heaven-because that's where you belong."  
  
Suddenly, Angel's heart monitor started to fritz and tremble. Her heart rate was going haywire, and it was starting to show a low pulse rate.  
  
"Mark!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "MARK! GET IN HERE! GET A DOCTOR!"  
  
I heard the sounds of commotion outside the room, and I heard the sound of chairs scraping against the floor as Maureen, Roger, Mimi, and Joanne rushed into the room. They stood there with me, helpless against the heart monitor, unable to help. I kept waiting to hear other footsteps rushing toward the room, to have them come in and stabilize the monitor, but none came.   
  
"Oh god..." whispered Roger suddenly, and pointed to the bed. I turned and looked, and suddenly saw Angel, with open eyes and a small, soft smile.  
  
"Collins...honey..." her voice was soft and shaky, and I could tell it hurt just to talk.  
  
"I'm here." I said, moving closer to her.  
  
"What you said to me was the most beautiful thing in the entire world...I'll remember that, honey." She closed her eyes again, her breathing became more rhythmic, and the heart monitor started to slow down more. I could hear Mimi, Maureen, and Joanne crying softly, and I could tell that Roger was probably holding Mimi close to him. I leaned in closer, hoping to catch another sentence from Angel. She moved her hand slowly, weakly, to cover my own, and whispered,  
  
"I'll cover you..."  
  
Then there was silence. Her chest stopped rising and falling, the heart monitor went flat. She was gone.  
  
Afterward  
  
Now that she's gone for good, I feel empty, and yet full of an ironic happiness. She's not suffering anymore, and that's what counts. Don't think I'm completely unemotional here-going to the funeral damn near killed me, and there are so many lonely nights where I wish she was here. I still miss her; I miss her like a child misses the salty beach breeze and the cool clear ocean during those long winter nights. I don't want to forget Angel, I don't want to spend countless hours trying to forget the one thing that I won't forget anyway. I'll never know why God chose her to have AIDS, why He chose Angel to die like that, but I'll assume He had His reasons. But I know she'll always be there. I know that she'll cover me. 


End file.
